Mac|Life Robots RSS Feed

iRoboChan Will Mess You Up!

Danny Estrada — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 13:36:55 -0500

Oh yeah, that is right, more robo-goodies from your friends to the Far East... unless you are on the West Coast... then they would be your friends to the Far West. Either way, we have a top secret video that was retrieved by one of our level 5 Mac|Life reconnaissance agents. In this top secret footage we see RoboChan, a quite harmless looking humanoid robot.

The body itself is fairly basic, constructed from the parts of the Kondo KHR-2HV series, which as been used by humanoid models for years (See examples:Naomi Armitage, Motoko Kusanagi, Data, Marcus Wright etc.), but what has our experts on edge is the use of new hardware powering the electro-cerebral-fusion-cortex, the iPhone 3GS.

As you can see in the video they have RoboChan preforming some basic tasks. Of course our top scientists have deduced the true nature of these so-called "tricks." Here is a breakdown of the "tricks" and what their real purpose is:

1. Alarm clock = S.M.U.R.F.D (Self-Mobile Unit Rejuvenate For Destruction).

2. Dance = Fully trained in every martial art.

3. Interaction = Fully automated human interactions (no awkward robot moments...Data we are looking in your direction).

4. Teach & Playback = Able to fully copy and imitate any target, good for covert missions.

5. Holding Spring Onion = Able to cook seven course meals, also fully trained as a fencer, all while using a spring onion.

We know that in the video the tech may look a bit primitive, but were are fully aware of the hidden capabilities of these units. We are keeping an eye out for the God Father, Tamakin; the Planner, Ogutti; and the Electrical Hacker, Gantaku. If these agents are spotted, you are instructed to make an official Mac|Life StrikeForce arrest, and bring the operatives into our base. Once here, they can begin constructing an army of Mac|Life humanoids to replace our interns.

Via PinkTentacle

Turn Your iPhone Into A SpyPhone

Danny Estrada — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 12:48:35 -0600

Believe it or not, we here at Mac|Life have dreams. They mainly consist of ninjas, unicorns, robots and Apple; but they're dreams none the less. So you can understand how excited we got when we saw this little iPhoneRobo. The Japanese blog moyashi.air-nifty.com, roughly translated by our superior Google translate skills to "One Secondhand Bath," shows us a self made iPhone spy-bot.

The magic begins with one jailbroken iPhone. Add an over-the-counter mini RC base and motor, the builder used No.68 from the Tamiya online shop. You could probably hit up your local hobby shop to find the parts needed. Next you have to be a totally awesome supreme geek with a level 12 intellect, the ability to speak to electronic devices, and have an extremely thorough understanding of 5th dimensional nanotechnology in relation to the theory of quantum time leaps residing in gray holes (a newly born "black hole" that won't stretch you to shreds, but instead transport you to a different part of the galaxy. No, not a worm whole, this is brand new.), and by the looks of it, some coding ability.

All of this is connected through the dock on the iPhone. Functions and commands are fed to the iPhone wirelessly using Arduino software. The commands can be found on the "One Secondhand Bath" blog, as well as some other neat videos like installing a keyboard to your iPhone, or turning it into a thermometer. The idea of a small iPhone army kind of scares us, but excites us more. What really scares us are the "actroids," creepy robots being built by a subsidiary company of Sanrio.

Video: iPhone Controls Robot -- Dooms Humanity

Roberto Baldwin — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 12:40:22 -0500

University of South Florida Students, Rodrigo Guiterrez and Jeff Craig, created a native iPhone app to control iRobot's Packbot over Wi-Fi.

The app streams video directly to the iPhone so they can sneak on to other college campuses and steal their precious mascots. Right now, the app uses arrows on the screen to control the robot, but soon, they hope to control it with the accelerometer.

Check out the video and get read for your Roomba to take over your home when the App Store hits in early July.

iPhone/iPod touch video link.

Via Engadget

Deep Tech - The Future Begins Today

Rik Myslewski — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 12:58:26 -0600

It’s a Monday morning in 2018, and you feel like crap. It can’t be your allergies, because those robot pills that you’ve been taking—the ones patented by Philips way back in 2007—automatically adjust your Claritin dosage based on pollen-level readings wirelessly beamed to them from the Web as they slip ’n’ slide through your gastrointestinal tract. So you plug your USB-powered biosensor into your Mac, let it nip your fingertip, and read your pulse and blood pressure. In a flash, Dose Manager Mac Gold Edition II displays its diagnosis: a mild intestinal infection—nothing serious. Dose Manager instructs you to take pill A3 from your Philips RoboDoc PillPack™. Using a radio-frequency scanner, Dose Manager will monitor that pill until it passes your sensitive tummy and arrives in your intestines, then beam it a signal to begin releasing the precise amount of medication you need based on your age, weight, and other biometric factors.

Yes, we’re on the verge of a brave new world of medication delivery. Philips has recently applied for a patent for a remote-controlled pill that contains compartments for medicines, electronically controlled release valves, a timer and radio-controlled circuitry to operate the valves, and an RFID chip for tracking and inventory. The amount and mixture of medicines released can be predetermined and managed by the timer, or it can be managed in real time, with instructions sent either through radio signals or in response to ultrasonic vibrations that are picked up by piezoelectric sensors inside the pill. Sorta makes Contac’s “time-release pills” (or “tiny time pills,” depending on your vintage) seem a wee bit archaic, eh?

The genius in these pills is that they can respond to outside influences. Is it cold and damp today? Well, then your daily dose of arthritis medicine will be able to get that information from your Mac’s Internet connection, match it up to your location as determined by your personal GPS, then distribute the right amount of Celebrex for your aching knees throughout the day. If it’s bright and sunny tomorrow, it’ll cut back the dose as appropriate. And don’t worry about having to hang around your Mac—when it’s bombs-away time, your Mac will call your mobile phone, which will relay the instructions to the smart pill happily traversing your gut.

Also, when you’re stuck in a hospital, you’ll never need to be awakened by some grumpy Nurse Ratched every four hours to take another handful of pills—you’ll just take one set of pills in the morning, and they’ll dispense each of your meds at exactly the right time over the next 24 hours.

And finally, Philips plans to make these RoboPills so inexpensive that you won’t have to…uh…search for them when they’ve done their duty. I thought that little detail would make the whole idea seem a bit more palatable.

Rik likes to think he would have taken the red pill rather than the blue pill.

B2 Wassup

Roman Loyola — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 14:39:54 -0500

You’ve just been served - by a dancing thingy that loosely resembles a rabbit.

It’s not enough that you dance to your music - your speaker wants to get its groove on too. The dancing speakers we’ve seen are toy-quality dogs, cars, and even something called an iZ. And now there’s Wassup, a dancing speaker in the form of a…rabbit? Well, that’s the closest thing we could determine that it resembles.

Wassup has an audio-in port, so you can connect an iPod, MacBook, or any other audio device. When music plays, Wassup does its thing, kicking its legs up, waving its ears, and spinning in circles. The speaker has some built-in sample songs, so when you need a fix of Wassup action, all you have to do is push a button to see it dance for about 15 seconds. And that’s about all we could take.

Wassup has a small single speaker that sounds like a handheld AM/FM radio, and it’s not loud enough to fill a room for a party. It’s definitely not for audio aficionados or anyone who wants clear, full-bodied sound.

The bottom line. Wassup’s dance moves might entertain the kids (for a few minutes). But grown-ups who find themselves turning to gimmicks like Wassup to breathe life into their music should consider spending their $25 on adding new songs to their collections.

COMPANY: B2

CONTACT: www.b2stuff.com

PRICE: $24.99

REQUIREMENTS: Any device with an audio-out jack.

What’s fun and entertaining to some…

…is annoying and irritating to others. Low-quality speaker sound.